What the Frack? (Controversy over Natural Gas Exploration)

Yesterday I caught the tail end of an NPR discussion of fracking. This process is vaguely familiar to me, sounds dangerous as hell, and potentially affects family members scattered about and living near oil-rich lands - so of course I listened in.

What got to me is a dispute over releasing information on what chemicals are actually used in the process. Apparently, oil companies (or a company; again, I didn't catch the whole thing) are not even informing the public on the process. Why? Because, they argued, this information is confidential and proprietary, and distributing it would cause business harm.

Unfortunately, I don't have a link to audio for the piece - and I cannot find a story that covers this aspect.

I do have this from wikipedia

Quote:

The EPA has stated that on December 3, 2010, Halliburton has provided “written confirmation” that it will disclose hydraulic fracturing operations as per request. The EPA initiated a mandatory request for all operations to be disclosed. Halliburton is to provide the EPA with information by January 31, 2011. EPA’s mandatory request is subject to enforcement.[28]

but am unable to locate any follow-up information.

From the same wiki article, I see that complaints go back as far as 2004. I'm also aware of the documentary (which a spokesman derided as 'not a documentary' on NPR) but have not seen it.

So.. a little short on facts here, especially in comparison to your typical Soap Box original post, but whatevs.

Who knows more? And what do you know? Opinions? Other obvious questions?

My take, and I'll be brief to avoid blogging:

What the frack, man? Really, that's the gut reaction. I don't understand how we can inject noxious chemicals into the ground and expect not to be questioned on it – except for the fact that that’s exactly what’s being done; the questions aren’t being asked, or at least not by the right people. As per usual, the government is letting industry create the problem rather than evaluating the potentials of the problem ahead of time.

The second we found that a company has been dislodging rock with chemicals known to kill people, plants, and life in general, we should have taken the same approach we do for drugs: Prove that what you’re doing isn’t dangerous, then you can do it, but until then you’re on hold.

What the frack, man? Really, that's the gut reaction. I don't understand how we can inject noxious chemicals into the ground and expect not to be questioned on it – except for the fact that that’s exactly what’s being done;

To my knowledge, they inject water and silica dust (sand, basically) under very high pressure. It (the pressure) is released at the remote end via a ball-activated valve. This sudden inrush of water causes surrounding shale to fracture, and the sand wedges itself into the subsequent cracks and gaps, allowing them to remain gas-permeable.

So, it's not an issue of injecting noxious chemicals, though the water will tend to absorb all manner of elements during this process...but a matter of releasing gas into uncontrolled areas (either leaking pipes, or simply expanding fissures into well areas).

What the frack, man? Really, that's the gut reaction. I don't understand how we can inject noxious chemicals into the ground and expect not to be questioned on it – except for the fact that that’s exactly what’s being done;

To my knowledge, they inject water and silica dust (sand, basically) under very high pressure. It (the pressure) is released at the remote end via a ball-activated valve. This sudden inrush of water causes surrounding shale to fracture, and the sand wedges itself into the subsequent cracks and gaps, allowing them to remain gas-permeable.

So, it's not an issue of injecting noxious chemicals, though the water will tend to absorb all manner of elements during this process...but a matter of releasing gas into uncontrolled areas (either leaking pipes, or simply expanding fissures into well areas).

I'm finding that other chemicals are being used though. Away from desk at the moment so links coming later.

Even if it's not the case the debate as you frame is equally disturbing.

Now, reports of contaminated water and alleged disposal of carcinogens in rivers have caught state and federal regulators, and even environmental watchdogs, off guard. Sometimes the fracking mix includes diesel fuel. Between 2005 and 2009, drillers injected 32 million gallons of fluids containing diesel into wells in 19 states, an investigation by Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) concludes.

While there have been no documented cases of fracking fluids flowing underground into drinking water, there have been spills above ground.

The Delaware River Basin Commission, which manages the watershed that supplies drinking water to 15 million people in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, has put gas development on hold while it drafts rules.

New York also has fracking on hold while it develops a drilling playbook. The Marcellus Shale runs beneath the watershed that supplies just over 1 billion gallons of water a day to New York City, the U.S.'s largest unfiltered water system.

The White House has sent mixed signals. "It's not necessarily federal regulation that will be needed," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson told a Feb. 3 Senate hearing, noting that many communities and states already monitor parts of the process. Energy Secretary Steven Chu seems to differ. In a 2010 speech, he said fracking can be "polluting" and that rules were inevitable. "We continue to believe that state regulatory agencies have the appropriate expertise" to oversee gas production, says Dan Whitten, a spokesman for America's Natural Gas Alliance.

So far, the EPA has begun a study of fracking's effect on drinking water. In February the agency said final results will come in 2014, two years after its initial target—and the 2012 elections.

Modern industrial processes almost always present some risk/threat to the local population while offering (potential) benefits to them and others.

It's the same old song and dance and inherent conflict of interests we see in relation to other private, moneyed-interest vs the public health safety issues.

I know I wouldn't want in in my back yard but we could use the increased production of natural gas.

I wonder if there are safer alternatives. If they exist, I'd guess they are less cost effective.

IMO, corporations (all business forms) should have to balance self interests with public health and safety interests as part of their charter.

there's also this NYT article about how they ship toxic/radioactive wastewater to sewage plants that can't properly treat it and end up just dumping it into rivers and lakes that supply drinking water.

To my knowledge, they inject water and silica dust (sand, basically) under very high pressure.

If it's really the case that that is all they're doing, I think the public relations win of letting people know that they're not injecting anything dangerous far FAR outweighs any trade secret methods loss due to everyone knowing that you can do the fracking with just high pressure water and sand. And they're no dummies... The reason they're not talking is that they know people will freak out when they discover that catalyzing agents with unknown health effects (or maybe known health effects) are being pumped into the groundwater. It's not like we don't have a history of this kind of shit happening. The modus operandi is, incorporate so you're not personally liable for anything, make as much money as fast and cheaply as possible, and then get the hell out before it all crashes and burns.

Man, thanks, Ares! I've wanted to bring this up for a while, but it's a fairly overwhelming issue, and thus harder to build an OP than I wanted to casually engage in, and then I'd forget about it till the next time I heard about it on NPR... Plus, it really makes me upset.

Fracking is a mess. It's been linked to earthquakes (which occur, it's been theorized, as a result of allowing the weight of the material above to crush down once the resisting compressed gases are removed). It's poisonous, toxic, secretive, and a horrible way to try to avoid actual alternate energy research. Companies seem quite obstinate about releasing any actual information.

Every time I listen to articles about it, it really makes me think of the tobacco industry, or the mountaintop removal mining(MtRM). It's permanent destruction of the environment for a quarterly profit and the devastation of the ecology, and the GOP is as rabidly in favor of a completely unfettered market and inudstry in Fracking as they are for MtRM.

It's reprehensible, but in our modern America, cancer for the masses, energy profits for the few is just the way we do it. Socialized risk/cleanup, privatized profit.

It's pretty much going to fuck PA's water and soil for decades, and still the imbecilic governor won't allow the gas industry to be taxed...the state is in fairly bad shape and could use the tax revenue for things like, oh, education and our failing infrastructure. Nothing like getting fucked in the ass, lube-free, and not even getting a reacharound.

The diesel fuel report scares me even more, but I'm going to avoid getting all knee-jerky on my response until we know more.

That's kinda why I started the thread. The Ars Technica article is good (dunno how it was missed), but everything I read/hear is set in an OMG DOOM tone - so I was kinda hoping for some posters to set me straight.

To my knowledge, they inject water and silica dust (sand, basically) under very high pressure.

If it's really the case that that is all they're doing, I think the public relations win of letting people know that they're not injecting anything dangerous far FAR outweighs any trade secret methods loss due to everyone knowing that you can do the fracking with just high pressure water and sand.

The problem is what the water dissolves while it's down there. It might not start with heavy metals, but it ends up with them.

This has been a pretty big issue in Pennsylvania. Being able to tap into the natural gas in the Marcellus Shale Formation is a pretty big deal.

I mostly hear the gloom and doom type stories. My personal take on it is that I'm fine with it, but it needs to be brought out into the daylight and regulated and taxed like any other industry. Unfortunately the new Republican governor has been standing in the way of that.

Can you explain? Does the information available not present a clear enough case on the alleged dangers of this process? Do you doubt the credibility or validity or even value of the investigations and reports?

I.. hate responding in a grilling tone, but I am genuinely curious. Like you, I've really only heard the doom and gloom stuff - except for yesterday's NPR discussion during which a spokesperson mocked a documentary and explained why his company is justified in keeping the ingredients used as a trade secret. He really gave nothing on the safety that I recall.

Fracking is a mess. It's been linked to earthquakes (which occur, it's been theorized, as a result of allowing the weight of the material above to crush down once the resisting compressed gases are removed). It's poisonous, toxic, secretive, and a horrible way to try to avoid actual alternate energy research. Companies seem quite obstinate about releasing any actual information.

City water, you're probably fine. If you've got a well, I'd get it professionally tested.

If you're interested in some self-experimentation, another video I've seen but didn't link gives a better, if less impressive, demonstration. Fill a 2L bottle 90% full, letting the water fun for a while first so you're not getting the water that's been sitting in the pipes. cap the bottle, then shake it up really well. Let it sit for a minute to settle, then remove the cap and hold a match to the opening. I'd use a long match or hold it with pliers though. I'd probably do it in a dimly lit room rather than outside too.

Quote:

Links, or it didn't happen.

Basel Switzerland abandoned a geothermal project after they experienced earthquakes. It's not a natural gas system, but they use a similar fracking process.

Fracking is some scary sh*t, at least the "wild west" way it's going down now (watch the Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland). With the limited amount of fresh water in the world, the fact that we're endangering and ruining aquifers like this (BTW--the companies are exempt from the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, thanks to Cheney's buddies' energy bill passed early last decade) so that a few people can make a quick buck is collective suicide. It's insane.

The Ars Technica article is good (dunno how it was missed), but everything I read/hear is set in an OMG DOOM tone - so I was kinda hoping for some posters to set me straight.

I live on the Marcellus Shale so I have a personal interest in this, and I haven't seen anything to dispel my concerns about this. The gas companies aren't really releasing any information, and everything coming from the EPA and other investigations makes it sound pretty nasty.

There's anti-fracking yard signs everywhere, but the only pro-fracking message I've seen was a single billboard on a highway in the middle of nowhere.

The surge in Fracking seems to me in many ways a repeat of the surge of Mountaintop Removal Mining with very little environmental review and no meaningful period for the public or the government to intervene. The end result for MRM has been disastrous environmentally for the communities nearby in terms of poisoned drinking water and large unstable slurry pools place in striking distance of residential areas and of course there is the tiny issue of entire mountains blasted into rubble. The MRM situation got so bad during the Bush admin, that some companies mined mountains that they had not even gotten permission from the Federal government to mine in the first place, on Federal land. Ask me why they are not in prison?

The other problem with Fracking is that because we have such antiquated mining laws, most of the liability for cleanup will end up falling on the property owner, not leasee of the mineral rights, the fracking company. Since the property owners are unlikely to have the ability to pay those claims and the mining companies will likely be structured in such a way as to avoid having the parent company held liable, state and Federal government will end up footing the bill for cleanup. These laws are from pre 1900 and were basically written by the oil and mining lobbyists of the day. Effectively, the mineral leasee gets most of the profit, effectively has superior rights over the property owner, and leaves the property owner or the government with most of the cleanup and lawsuit liability.

We really can't begin to address Fracking or our other mining and drilling related problems in this country before we update our mining laws to place appropriate liability on the big companies that get most of the benefit from these leases.

I live on the Marcellus Shale so I have a personal interest in this, and I haven't seen anything to dispel my concerns about this. The gas companies aren't really releasing any information, and everything coming from the EPA and other investigations makes it sound pretty nasty.

There's anti-fracking yard signs everywhere, but the only pro-fracking message I've seen was a single billboard on a highway in the middle of nowhere.

If the numbers are that slanted, why don't you organize and storm the offices of the gas company en masse? Learn from Wisconsin. You have to claw back your public safety, because the government and the gas company don't have any interest in giving it to you.

It's pretty much going to fuck PA's water and soil for decades, and still the imbecilic governor won't allow the gas industry to be taxed...

eXceLon wrote:

This has been a pretty big issue in Pennsylvania. Being able to tap into the natural gas in the Marcellus Shale Formation is a pretty big deal.

I mostly hear the gloom and doom type stories. My personal take on it is that I'm fine with it, but it needs to be brought out into the daylight and regulated and taxed like any other industry. Unfortunately the new Republican governor has been standing in the way of that.

I live on the Marcellus Shale so I have a personal interest in this, and I haven't seen anything to dispel my concerns about this. The gas companies aren't really releasing any information, and everything coming from the EPA and other investigations makes it sound pretty nasty.

There's anti-fracking yard signs everywhere, but the only pro-fracking message I've seen was a single billboard on a highway in the middle of nowhere.

If the numbers are that slanted, why don't you organize and storm the offices of the gas company en masse? Learn from Wisconsin. You have to claw back your public safety, because the government and the gas company don't have any interest in giving it to you preserving it.

I can just see it now:

Why do I have to pay my tax dollars (to regulate/clean up the results of fracking), just so you can live in Bumshale Paradise? Your socialism is costing me money.

Fracking is a mess. It's been linked to earthquakes (which occur, it's been theorized, as a result of allowing the weight of the material above to crush down once the resisting compressed gases are removed). It's poisonous, toxic, secretive, and a horrible way to try to avoid actual alternate energy research. Companies seem quite obstinate about releasing any actual information.

I don't know what to say anymore. I've looked into whether or not this method is being used in my area, and to the best of my googlefu things look good. Even so, there is nothing that makes the fractionation of rock look like a good thing.

Fracking is a mess. It's been linked to earthquakes (which occur, it's been theorized, as a result of allowing the weight of the material above to crush down once the resisting compressed gases are removed). It's poisonous, toxic, secretive, and a horrible way to try to avoid actual alternate energy research. Companies seem quite obstinate about releasing any actual information.

Fracking is a mess. It's been linked to earthquakes (which occur, it's been theorized, as a result of allowing the weight of the material above to crush down once the resisting compressed gases are removed). It's poisonous, toxic, secretive, and a horrible way to try to avoid actual alternate energy research. Companies seem quite obstinate about releasing any actual information.